Texas Attorneys Back Down, Will Allow Syrian Refugees for Now

“All they’re asking for is safety”, said Lucy Carrigan, spokeswoman for the nonprofit International Rescue Committee (IRC), which is coordinating the Dallas resettlements. Those refugees will include twelve children between the ages of two and fifteen, four parents, two grandparents and a Syrian woman whose mother now lives in Houston.

The state’s Republican Governor Mike Pence said that, in the wake of the attacks in Paris, he could not justify making an exception for the family.

Texas backed down after the Obama administration and the ACLU filed court papers challenging the lawsuit.

“The FBI as well as other federal officials have made it clear – they have no ability to ensure the safety and security of the refugees they are admitting into the United States”, Abbott has said.

Paxton, however, isn’t entirely dropping the lawsuit.

The White House says states don’t have the legal authority to block refugee placement.

Saying there is no threat of harm from 21 Syrian refugees, including 12 children, who are due to arrive in Texas in the next week, the Obama administration urged a judge Friday to reject the “speculative and uninformed fears” of state officials who are working to halt the flow of refugees.

“We think it is a very good first step toward ultimately getting back on track to get Syrian refugee families settled in Texas”, she said. Gov. Greg Abbott said Syrian refugees are not welcome in the state because there is no way to verify that they are not terrorists.

Paxton said the lawsuit succeeded in cajoling “requested information” about the refugees but did not elaborate.

After the initial filing, Paxton withdrew his request for a temporary restraining order that aimed to stop the arrival of six refugees in Dallas next week. A dozen of the refugees bound for Texas arrived in New York on Thursday and Friday and were greeted warmly by Democratic New York Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Speaking to VOA, Michael Olivas, a law professor at the University of Houston’s Law Center, said the federal government has exclusive authority on these matters.

The refugees bound for Dallas are expected to take an apartment near other recent arrivals to the USA from Syria.

On Wednesday, the Texas Tribune reported that 242 Syrian refugees have been resettled in Texas over the past three years. The family’s expected home is a few miles from the complex where a Liberian man lived a year ago before being hospitalized for Ebola.